


With Kindness

by entanglednow



Category: Pushing Daisies, Pushing Daisies/Supernatural, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-14
Updated: 2009-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's taller than Dean expects and he smells like apple pie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Kindness

  
He's taller than Dean expects and he smells like apple pie. It should throw him more than it does. But then this place isn't like anywhere else. A bright slice of hectic colour and gaudy shine. It's like the normal rules no longer apply. He thinks, for one serious minute, that he's taken a wrong turn and gotten lost in some Trickster's drunken fever dream.

But of all the places to come across a pie shop. Looking for a man who held life and death in his hands.

Someone had once said that life was full of coincidences.

Sometimes they were even good ones.

Dean had had an image in his head of the sort of man that could do this. Because that's the type of thing you can't help. You imagine people before you meet them. Dean's met a lot of people, he knows better than most that you don't always get what you see, but that didn't stop you from _expecting_ it. So he imagined him small, old, maybe even ferrety, _wrong_ in some way. Wrong in a way you could see. Maybe even in a way you could smell, corpse old and tattered all the way down to the bone. Because Dean's life isn't a fairy tale. It's hard and it's dirty and Dean's spent too long digging through the skin to find out what's inside. In his experience what's inside is usually rotten all the way through.

But Ned isn't any of these things. He's almost exactly the opposite. He's tall, almost as tall as Sam and he has a smile television evangelists would kill for. Dean watches it for a long time, tries to see the edges, he's good at finding the edges, where things don't fit, finding out exactly how to pull them free and get at what's underneath. But Ned looks for all the world like he's real. Like the smile is real, and Dean isn't quite prepared for that.

He watches the man who makes pies, the Pie Maker, for want of a better description. He watches him move around. Watches him carry and sweep and fold in reaction to words and looks. different variations of awkward and uncertain, all limbs and coordination. Long in a way Sam hasn't been for years. But not uncomfortable with it. The man's clearly used to being tall. Used to _pretending_ not to be tall too. It's more like he's trying to contain himself. Trying to keep himself inside. Also, Dean is a pretty good judge, and, judging by the smell, the man makes good pies.

Really good pies.

It hurts to realise how many of his memories aren't just his own.

He's tired, and it's still a long way 'til dawn.

Dean waits outside, eyes focused on the car, a solid line of black, not empty, his baby's never empty. Though she'll never complain about what she holds in the front seat. Not warm for hours now, not warm since Dean called in the last favour he was owed, got inside and drove all through the night and half way through the day.

Ned brings out the trash when the Pie Hole closes.

It's hard not to be desperate and threatening when you're willing to be both. Dean's too tired to hide and too old to play games.

"You're Ned, you're the Pie Maker?" Dean still finds that title curious. It's more simple honesty than any attempt at a nickname. It's just what he is, what he _does._ Maybe even the most important thing about him. Dean knows what it means to let your actions dictate your whole life. It seems strangely appropriate

"And, umm, you are?" Ned rubs his hands on his apron, Dean almost mistakes it for a gesture that will precede some sort of attack. But, on Ned, Dean is almost certain he's brushing off old bits of fruit in case he'll be required to shake hands. This place really is more disconcerting than the bright colours and friendly people suggest it is.

"My name's Dean Winchester, I take care of things no one else can." Because there's such a thing as too much honesty. Even to someone who can bring people back from the dead.

Ned looks at him, without looking like he's looking. It's a talent not many people can pull off.

"You kill things," Ned says quietly, his feet move, quick little twitches, like he can't decide if he's supposed to try and get away or stay and pet the stray dog. His instincts are all wrong. But then Dean wonders why they shouldn't be. He figures no monster in their right mind would come looking for death.

"Only the things that should stay in the ground, the things other people can't put away for good." He's not good at hedging around what he does with words. But this place, this shiny colourful place seems to demand words. It seems to demand honesty and plainness and explanation. Like anything not painted bright needs to prove it belongs. "Nothing clean," he adds finally, like the tail end of a confession.

"People?" Ned asks dubiously.

"Mostly not-people," Dean says with a shrug.

Ned doesn't ask him to elaborate, most people do but he doesn't, he simply pulls his hands up, tucks them around himself.

"You know why I'm here don't you?" Dean asks.

"I'm assuming it's not for the pie." Ned looks strangely unhappy about that, he's clearly all about the pie. Dean likes to think in another place, in another time, this would be a really good place for pie.

"No, though I have heard good things about the pie. I've heard different things about you."

"Me? What have you heard about me?" Secrets get everyone in the end. Dean think's Ned's secrets are old, but he's never learned to wear them well.

Dean tells him what he's heard, quiet honesty that pushes Ned into tight self-protective gestures and long frowns that it seemed a miracle were not deeper etched. He lays it all down in that same honest strangely confessional way that this strange town seems to require and he can't quite shake off.

Ned doesn't seem to find anything strange about it. He has the look of a man who's heard a lot of confessions, each stranger than the last. He remains narrow in the sharp light and listens to Dean tell him his own secrets.

When Dean finishes talking he finds he has no breath left. Inhales roughly and lets the cold silence of the night take over from him.

Dean thinks maybe Ned is a man who sees things when he looks hard enough. His head drifts sideways, looking in response to Dean's utter refusal to. He leans just far enough to see the flat black edge of the Impala, and the fact that it's not empty.

"Who is he?" Ned asks.

"Does it matter?"

"I think it does." Ned doesn't look away, he's afraid in a way that normal people always are. But he's willing to push, determined to understand the 'why.' Dean's fairly sure then that whatever made Ned this way, it wasn't hell. It makes it easier, and Dean's been to too many places to feel ashamed.

"He's my brother," Dean tells him. "And I need him back."

Ned's quiet for a long time. Dean doesn't know him well enough to know if he'll say yes or no. Doesn't know how to threaten or bribe, doesn't want to but he _will._ He's flat out refusing to admit that this is the end of the line. No more get out of jail free cards. No more - because he needs to keep breathing.

"One minute," Ned says quietly, and it's almost a protest, sharp across his nerves. "One minute and something else dies."

"I was told the rules," Dean says with a nod. "There's a cattle truck parked across the street."

He finds out exactly what sort of man Ned is then, because he simply says nothing for a long second, eyebrows drawn down in pain. Cows for god's sake, and Dean wants to protest, angrily, that Sam is worth more than cows.

"I just -" Dean exhales roughly, forces himself not to push too hard. "A minute of your life and you'll never see me again."

"A minute of my life," Ned says quietly, like Dean's asking for so much more. He is, but it's just for him, just him and Sam and don't they deserve to beg, borrow or steal all the life they can get, after everything?

"Please touch my brother." Dean wants it to be a question, but there's a thin note of pleading.

"You could make me," Ned says quietly.

Dean nods, one sharp head movement.

"I could, but I've seen where that goes," he says roughly, a flare of almost unwilling honestly to a complete stranger. "I need him, but I need him the _right_ way."

The corner of Ned's mouth quirks up. "You think this is the right way?"

"Yeah," Dean says simply. "I wasn't sure at first, but now, yeah."

Ned looks at him, looks at him _hard_ and Dean refuses to flinch away.

Finally Ned nods and follows Dean, follows him in long slow steps that Dean can barely hear over the rush of blood in his ears.

He pulls open the passenger door.

Sam's where he left him, pale and loosely awkward in the seat. In the dark, all shadows and lines, Dean could almost pretend he was asleep, or unconscious. Just another long day full of bruises and broken bones.

Ned looks up at him, and Dean's struck again by how strangely similar they are. Neatness and earnestness and both with things they didn't ask for and couldn’t always control.

He obviously finds what he wants to find in Dean's face.

Ned, almost as an absent gesture, lays his fingers across the back of Sam's hand.

He resists when Ned tugs on his arm, then eventually goes with him, stands far enough away that fate won't decide to take him for his brother. Though fate should know by now he doesn't care.

The wind picks up, Dean counts down every second while Ned stands silent beside him.

Eventually there's a 'thump' from the cattle truck.

It sounds strangely final.

The tall shape at his side moves, as if to drift away into the night.

Dean wraps his fingers round Ned’s wrist. It's warmer than he expects, fragile bones under the skin. It feels human, soft and alive, and Dean thinks he's gotten too used to touching monsters and angels.

"Thank you," he says simply.

Ned looks awkward.

"It's different here, different in good way," Dean looks him straight in the eye. "You want to be careful the smell of death underneath doesn't get too strong."

Ned's face pinches then shuts down, and that's a self protective gesture if Dean's ever seen one. He suspects maybe this is a man who lives on his own guilt.

Dean thinks, really thinks about what it would be like to hold the power of life and death over everything on the planet.

He knows he wouldn't be half as kind.

Ned hangs on for just a fraction longer, a scatter of pulse beats and a shift of skin.

"What-"

Dean interrupts him.

"You touch things, and you bring them back to life because you want to?"

"I don't think it works like that, I don't think-" Ned shrugs. "I don't think that me _wanting_ has much to do with it."

Dean thinks about what he was told, about how Ned had the power of life, _and_ death.

"Have you ever touched something and wanted it to die?"

Ned looks shocked, breath caught in his throat like the thought is too horrible to consider.

"I wouldn't- I would _never_ do that," Ned's voice is stunned honesty. Dean hasn't heard that for a long time.

Dean thinks maybe whatever gave him this thing chose right after all.

"No, I don't think you would. Take care of yourself Ned."

Dean pushes his hands in his pockets, and works his way back to the car.

Sam's frowning in the passenger seat, fingers poking at his hairline.

Dean very carefully doesn't react at all. He slides into the driver's seat instead. It takes more effort than he would have liked to raise an eyebrow and paste an expression of amusement on his face.

"Dude, you okay? You smacked your head pretty bad."

Sam rubs at the stain on his forehead until it's just flakes of red on his fingers.

"I don't remember, I remember being thrown into a wall-"

"Yeah, that was yesterday." Dean shoves him over until he's slumped back in his own seat.

"Where are we?" Sam asks, frowning out the window in confusion. "Why is everything so yellow?"

"Just passing through Sammy, just passing through."

Dean guns the engine.


End file.
